Low-cut filter

[skeletal]

I've been recording auditions takes and there's an option for an 80hz lowcut filter on my mixer/interface. Should I have this on or off? I need to play a pedal G (David Concertino) and it looks like that would fall under the cutoff.

[quiethorn]

Low cut filters are usually used to cut wind or handling noise. If you're recording inside in a quite room on a mic stand, you shouldn't need it on.

That being said, even if it's an 80Hz cut, it may not actually do much to your pedal G. Try it and see how it sounds. Depending on your mic setup, you may or may not even be capturing the fundamental of the pedal G to begin with. Bass response on mics falls off fairly quickly as you move away from a mic, so you're probably recording mostly overtones from the pedal G. Further, an 80Hz cutoff doesn't mean all sounds below 80Hz are just dropped. Depending on what kind of filter it is, 80Hz would be the frequency at which the sound has decreased by X dB (-3 dB, for example) on the filter's curve. So again, you can probably leave it off, but turn it on and see what it sounds like.